A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

488 HIPPOCRATES. HIPPOCRATES.
-there some ingenuity and skill, but which are still vourably, these humours underwent a certain'sufficiently full of difficulties and inconsistencies to change in quality (or coction), which was the sign
betray at once their origin. of returning health, as preparing the way for the
So much space has been taken up with the pre- expulsion of the morbid matter, or crisis; and that
liminary, but most indispensable step of determin- these crises had a tendency to occur at certain
ing which are the genuine works of Hippocrates, stated periods, which were hence called " critical
and which are spurious, that a very slight sketch days." (Brit. and For. Mled. Rev.)
of his opinions is all that can be now attempted, The medical practice of Hippocrates was cautious
and for a fuller account the reader must be referred and feeble, so much so, that he was in after times
to the works of Le Clerc, Haller, Sprengel, &c., or reproached with letting his patients die, by doing
to some of those which relate especially to Hippo- nothing to keep them alive. It consisted chiefly
crates. He divides the causes of disease into two in watching. the operations of nature, and proprincipal classes; the one comprehending the in- moting the critical evacuations mentioned above;
fluence of seasons, climates, water, situation, &c., so that attention to diet and regimen was the
and the other consisting of more personal and pri- principal and often the only remedy that he emvate causes, such as result from the particular kind ployed. Several hundred substances have been
and amount of food and exercise in which each enumerated which are used medicinally in different
separate individual indulges himself. The modifi- parts of the Hippocratic Collection; of these, by
cations of the atmosphere dependent on different far the greater portion belong to the vegetable
~seasons and climates is a subject which was suc- kingdom, as it would be in vain to look for any
cessfully treated by Hippocrates, and which is still traces of chemistry in these early writings. In
far from exhausted by all the researches of modern surgery, he is the author of the frequently quoted
science. He considered that while heat and cold, maxim, that " what cannot be cured by medicines
moisture and dryness, succeeded one another is cured by the knife; and what cannot be cured
throughout the year, the human body underwent by the knife is cured by fire." The anatomical
certain analogous changes, which influenced the knowledge displayed in different parts of the Hipdiseases of the period; and on this basis was pocratic Collection is scanty and contradictory, so
founded the doctrine of pathological constitutions, much so, that the discrepancies on this subject
corresponding to particular conditions of the at- constitute an important criterion in deciding the
mosphere, so that, whenever the year or the season genuineness of the different treatises.
exhibited a special character in which such or such With regard to the personal character of Hipa temperature prevailed, those persons who were pocrates, though he says little' or nothing expressly
exposed to its influence were affected by a series of about himself, yet it is impossible to avoid drawing
disorders, all bearing' the same stamp. (How certain conclusions from the characteristic passages
plainly the same idea runs through the Observati- scattered through the pages of his writings. He
ones lIedicae of Sydenham, our " English Hippo- was evidently a person who not only had had'crates" need not be pointed out to those who are great experience, but who also knew how to turn
-at all familiar with his works.) The belief in the it to the best account; and the number of moral
influence which different climates exercise on the reflections and apophthegms that we meet with in'human frame follows naturally from the theory just his writings, some of which (as, for example,'mentioned; for, in fact, a climate may be con- " Life is short, and Art is long ") have acquired a
sidered as nothing more than a permanent season, sort of proverbial notoriety, show him to have
-whose effects may be expected to be more power- been a profound thinker. He appears to have felt'ful, inasmuch as the cause is ever at work upon the moral obligations and responsibilities of his
mankind. Accordingly, Hippocrates attributes to profession, and often tries to impress upon his
climate both the conformation of the body and the readers the duties of care and attention, and kinddisposition of the mind-indeed, almost'every ness towards the sick, saying that a physician's
-thing; and if the Greeks were found to be hardy first and chief consideration ought to be the refreemen, and the Asiatics effeminate slaves, he storing his patient to health. The style of the
accounts for the difference of their characters by Hippocratic writings, which are in the Ionic dialect,
that of the climates in which they lived. With. is so concise'as to be sometimes extremely obscure;
respect to the second class of causes producing though this charge, which is as old as the time of
disease, he attributed all sorts of disorders to a Galen, is often brought too indiscriminately against
vicious system of diet, which, whether excessive the whole collection, whereas it applies, in fact.
or defective, he considered to be equally injurious; especially only-to certain treatises, which seem to
and in the same way he supposed that, when bo- be merely a collection of notes, such as De Hudily exercise was either too much indulged in or moribes, De Alimento, De Officina Medici, &c. In
entirely neglected, the health was equally likely to those writings, which are universally allowed to be
suffer, though by different forms of disease. Into genuine, we do not find this excessive brevity,'all the minutiae of the'; Humoral Pathology " (as though even these are in general by no means easy.
it was called), which kept its ground in Europe as (Brit. and For. Med. Rev.)
the prevailing doctrine of all the medical sects for Of the great number of books published on the
more than twenty centuries, it would be out of subject of the Hippocratic Collection, only a very
place to enter here. It will be sufficient to remind few of the most modern and most useful'can
the reader that the four fluids or humours'of the be here enumerated; a fuller list may be found
body (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile) in Choulant's Handb. der BUckerkende jiir die
were supposed to be the primary seat of disease; Aeltere Medicin, or his Biblioth. Medico-His-'that health was the result of the due combination tor.; or in Ackermann's Historia Literaria Hippo-'(or crasis) of these, and that, when this crasis cratis. Fiiesii Oeconomia Hippocratis is a very
was disturbed, disease was the consequence; that, copious and learned lexicon, published in fol.
in the course of a disorder that was proceeding fa- Francof. 1588, and Genev. 1662. Sprengel's